Daggers of Ice

Chapter 24

The Far North. The Black Keep.

1010.

Edmund.

After weeks of polite refusals, he had finally accepted Arianna's invitation to join the evening meal – expecting perhaps a Queen's banquet, all crystalline goblets and cold finery, as Jadis would have demanded. But the hall he entered that night was nothing like the Witch's feasts of old.

It was alive.

The great chamber glowed with a hundred lanterns, their flames soft and golden against the black stone and ice-veined walls. The air was thick with the scent of roasted meat and spice, of pine smoke and melting snow. Wolves of the Secret Police lounged near the fires, their golden eyes watchful but at ease, while frost-fae and dryads mingled among northmen and dwarves. Even the smallest children sat shoulder to shoulder with their elders, drinking broth from wide wooden bowls and laughing freely.

The tables stretched the length of the hall, long and low, draped not with silk but with thick furs. There were no jewelled goblets, no glittering chandeliers – only polished horn, beaten copper, and candlelight reflecting off ice. Everyone sat on cushions or woven rugs, a circle of warmth and community that reminded him more of a tribe than a court.

It was...disarming.

It was not the extravagance he had come to associate courts and royal celebrations.

Even more striking, everyone in the hall had a plate in front of them – even the servants, even the soldiers still in their leathers. The laughter that echoed through the space was genuine, unguarded. When a frost-fae child spilled her drink, the naiad beside her only laughed and summoned a flicker of mist to mop it away.

Edmund's eyes wandered across the hall until they found her.

Arianna sat not at the head of the table, but among them – though her place was unmistakable. A great carved chair of ice rose slightly above the others, its surface catching the light so that she seemed haloed in blue and silver. Her attire was simpler than he'd ever seen it: a long, fur-trimmed gown of charcoal wool, her mahogany hair was a crown of plaits and twists, practical yet beautiful, the mark of someone born for the battlefield

Her people adored her.

He could see it in their eyes; in the reverent way they looked at her as she passed the bread down the line or raised her cup to toast some nameless victory.

When Arianna's gaze finally met his across the crowd, it was only for a moment: but it was enough. The hall, the laughter, the warmth all faded to a distant hum. She lifted her cup slightly in acknowledgment.

He inclined his head in return, a wry smile ghosting across his lips.

And then one of the frost-fae slipped through the crowd – a wisp of a creature, all pale skin and glimmering wings that caught the light like shards of glass. She leaned close to her queen, whispering something that even his keen ears couldn't catch. Arianna listened, still as sculpted ice, and then inclined her head once – a movement so subtle he might have missed it had he blinked.

A moment later, both women were gone.

No one announced her departure. No herald called out her name. But it was as though the air itself adjusted to her absence, a quiet ripple passing through the gathered throng before conversation resumed its steady rhythm.

Edmund found himself nursing a cup of spiced mead, its sweetness biting at the back of his throat, and he let his eyes wander the room. The chatter flowed around him like a current, low and warm.